Star Potential?

Qantas may have suffered a setback with its failure to get a green light for a Hong Kong-based Jetstar but elsewhere in Asia its stable of no-frills offshoots is now paying dividends. In Singapore, Vietnam and Japan, the budget carrier is attracting increasing numbers of customers and making money

It may seem strange to launch into a story about low-cost carrier Jetstar by drawing attention to the performance of major Gulf operator Emirates Airline, which recently edged its way into the lead as the largest full-service foreign carrier in the Singapore market, overtaking Cathay Pacific. It is, however, more than relevant. One of the major reasons Emirates has hit the front has been Jetstar Asia, Qantas’s largest LCC operation in the Orient.

That an airline with all the bells and whistles could have a deep relationship with a no-frills budgeteer would have been unimaginable a few years ago. But the now well-established and still growing partnership between Emirates and Jetstar Asia in Singapore has been a significant contributor to the Dubai-based carrier’s expansion and establishment of Singapore as its primary regional hub, allowing it to build feeder traffic from around South-East Asia.